Wood on Words: Roots of garden’ and flower’ worth a closer look

Friday

It’s just about time to bid farewell to May, the month celebrated for bringing the flowers that make those April showers more tolerable.

It’s just about time to bid farewell to May, the month celebrated for bringing the flowers that make those April showers more tolerable.

Many flowers, beautiful and cheery in their own right, also turn into an astounding variety of fruits, vegetables and nuts, thereby nourishing our bodies as well as our souls.

Is it any wonder that the original concept of Paradise, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is a garden?

The word “garden” is traced to a variant of the Old French “jardin” and is of Germanic origin, according to “The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories.” It appears to have sprung from the same Indo-European base as “yard.”

“Eden,” that original garden, according to Webster’s, is from a Hebrew word meaning, literally, “delight.” However, the World Book says it’s from a Sumerian word for “plain.” I assume that’s “a plain,” rather than “plain” as in “ordinary.”

However, I find it curious that “garden-variety” has come to mean “commonplace,” a usage that began in 1928, according to “American Slang.” That’s a long way from paradise.

Similarly, it seems strange that the phrase “to lead someone down the garden path,” which arose around 1870, is also negative. It means “to mislead or deceive.”

Of course, Adam and Eve did get kicked out of Eden.

In contrast, examples of “flower” are almost always upbeat. In addition to the botanical kind, “flower” can be “the best or finest part or example,” “the best period of a person or thing” or “something decorative.”

That last one is also seen in the adjective “flowery” in reference to language: “full of figurative and ornate expressions and fine words.”

Flowers really blossomed as a symbol with the hippie movement of the 1960s, with “flower people,” “flower power” and “flower children.”

There are two other kinds of “flower girls”: one is an attendant of the bride at a wedding, and the other sells flowers in the streets and becomes “My Fair Lady.”

As might be expected, the roots of “flower” run deep and put out several branches along the way. Its Latin ancestor is the noun “flos”; the connection is more apparent in its genitive form, “floris.” From this we also get “flora,” “floral” and “florist,” as well as three others that aren’t so obvious:

“Florid”: When applied to a person’s complexion, it means “flushed with red or pink.” More generally, it’s “highly decorated; gaudy; showy; ornate.” Originally, it meant “decorated with flowers.”

“Florin”: A type of coin. The first ones were gold, issued in 1252 in medieval Florence, and had the figure of a lily stamped on them. And yes, “Florence” is also flower-based, from the Latin “Florentia” — literally, “a blooming.”

“Florida”: The Sunshine State was named by Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon. In Latin, it is, literally, “abounding in flowers.” De Leon was looking for the Fountain of Youth. Today he would find Florida abounding in retirees.

And would you believe the homonym “flour,” the powder produced by grinding and sifting grain, has the same origin? Webster’s says it’s from a Middle English figurative use as “best, prime” in “flour of wheat,” after the French phrase “fleur de farine” — literally, “flower of meal.”

The word “flourish” is also a family member,

Digging even deeper to the Indo-European base that meant “to swell, sprout,” we also find the beginnings of “bloom,” “blossom,” “blade,” “bleed” (and “blood”) and apparently the Greek “phyllon” for “leaf,” preserved in the thin dough “phyllo” and in combining forms such as “-phyll.”

And without “chlorophyll,” the green pigment that’s essential to photosynthesis, there probably would be no flowers in May, or any other month.

Contact Barry Wood at bwood@rrstar.com or read his blog at blogs.e-rockford.com/woodonwords/.

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